


Men Enough to Face the Darkness

by rei_c



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Experimental Style, Kabbala, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Apocalypse, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Sam Winchester, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-04
Updated: 2006-10-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:08:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21975616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: They thought they escaped the apocalypse. They thought wrong.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://rei-c.livejournal.com/629883.html).

_“Flames glided in the river, small green flames, red flames, white flames,  
pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other -- then separating slowly or hastily.  
The traffic of the great city went on in the deepening night upon the sleepless river.  
We looked on, waiting patiently -- there was nothing else to do till the end of the flood…”_  
-“Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad, 1902

When the wind shifts, they’re half an hour away from Mexico. Sam rubs a vision out of his eyes like dust and Dean’s fingers are white around a steering wheel that can’t protest. The space inside the car is silent.

\--

Sam wakes up with a gasp, hands cupping his skull as lazy-lidded eyes stare at nothing, the lines around them crinkling, stretching. Dean sits up, puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder, and says, “Sammy?” because he knows the sounds of Sam’s gasps, has them all catalogued and this one is filed under ‘vision.’ Sam shudders, muscles contracting through his whole body, one after the other in a never-ending progression, and he leans over the side of the bed to vomit, comes up gagging. “Sammy?” Dean whispers, and Sam says, “We need to go. Now.” They do, because Dean knows that tone, has it filed under ‘evil’ and ‘death.’ 

They get in the Impala and Dean starts the engine, backs up and asks, “Which way?” He might be behind the wheel but the visions drive Sam and all he can do is follow, half the time having trouble even with that. “South,” Sam says, and when Dean pauses, wants to say that they’re already an hour outside of Laredo, Sam says, “I know. But we need to get into Mexico, at least. Farther south than just the border, if possible,” and then, “Don’t turn on the radio,” and this tone, this one that sounds like pale-faced terror, is wholly new. 

\--

When the wind shifts, Sam stiffens as if he can feel it half a world away and Dean looks over, raises an eyebrow. “Faster,” Sam says, and when they pass under a streetlight, Dean sees that Sam’s eyes are closed and he’s focused on something. Dean drives faster. 

\--

They have everything in the back, no time to pack it all away, so guns and salt and sigil-covered papers lie scattered on the back seat, on the floor. Sam reaches back and digs for a moment, comes up with a small white bottle. It used to hold bubbles, Dean thinks, one of those tiny liquid-soap bottles moms give their kids instead of the whole red container, and Sam uses it when he needs to see something. Dean’s never asked what’s in it, but it stinks and usually leaves Sam comatose for a couple of hours after he’s done with it. “Wake me up when we cross the border if you have to,” Sam says, dabbing the red-black oil on his eyelids and lips. “But whatever you do, don’t stop driving,” and Dean wants to ask why not, ask what’s going on, ask so many questions, but then Sam stiffens and falls somewhere Dean can’t follow to pull him up. Dean drives and doesn’t touch the radio.

\--

When the wind shifts, Sam’s eyes are closed and oil drips off his eyelashes, clumped and pungent, staining the soft tanned skin Dean can still taste. Sam’s traipsing the astral planes and Dean’s driving, and then the wind has shifted and the world begins to collapse in on itself.


	2. Part One

__

_  
_

__

Today

“They don’t believe you, do they?” Dean asks, climbing the Wall. Sam, already on top and looking outwards, doesn’t answer. “Sam,” Dean says, unspoken plea in his voice, and that makes Sam turn, give Dean a half-smile that says more than Sam has the past two years. “Sam, they need you here. The other psychics at this camp just aren’t strong enough to hold it without you.” Sam shakes his head, _They are. They can be_ , and Dean sighs, wraps his arm around Sam’s waist and leans in, feeling safer than he has a right to be when Sam’s arm lays heavy and real on his shoulders, pulls him in tight, fingers tracing out words and apologies both. _I can’t just leave them out there to die_ ¸ his fingers say, and Dean exhales, nods. “I know. But if we’re going to—” and Sam’s hold tightens, tries to cut him off, but Dean shakes his head. “No, Sam. If you’re going after them, I am too.” Sam’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t refuse Dean in the myriad number of ways he communicates without his voice, just stands there and watches the sand outside of the camp shift, eat itself, die, be reborn.

\--

An hour later, they’re walking down from the rise and the Wall and watchtowers, Dean in front, Sam one step behind and to the right. Soldiers carrying rifles loaded with silver, rock salt, and Holy Water salute Dean, while the officers salute Sam and both groups watch as the Winchesters walk out of the Zone and into the camp. 

The village is a hodge-podge of tents, adobe buildings, and lean-tos built of scrap everything, the people as varied as this little outpost in the middle of the desert, some drenched in holy objects, some bustling around with learned efficiency, some with the same bruised expression that Sam wears now. “The convoy’s leaving this afternoon,” Dean says, and watches as Sam’s eyes flick to the edge of their little village, count the jeeps and note who’s on them. Dean sees the moment Sam realizes that Jana’s loading up with the soldiers by the way Sam pauses, body bending in, sees the way Sam seems to take a step in the convoy’s direction without moving. “She’ll be all right,” Dean says. “You’ve taught her enough,” and Sam shakes his head, _It’s never enough_. Dean doesn’t say anything to that; can’t, because they’ve lost three over the past six months, lost them to the madness on the other side of the Wall, and as much as he likes Jana, he’d rather it be her going west to Rancherías with the convoy than his brother. 

Jana looks up and her eyes unerringly pierce in their direction, and, not for the first time, Dean watches as his brother talks in a way that, despite his catalogues and histories, Dean can’t reach. Sam and Jana stare at each other, and Dean watches as several of the other psychics move through the camp and stand between them, forming an oval with Sam at one end and Jana at the other, and it seems as if the camp stills, quiets, watches. The hair on Dean’s arms stands straight up but he ignores it, focused on his brother, and when Sam finally turns away, eyes dark and clouded, Dean’s there, helping Sam to their tent, to bed. 

\--

He misses it here, in bed, most of all. The fingers reciting poetry on his back, the slow blink of Sam’s eyes a litany of prayers and curses, the rise and fall of Sam’s chest beneath him, these are all languages Dean can speak, understand, but Dean misses hearing it spilling from Sam’s lips. As he licks a trail up Sam’s neck, rolls his hips and buries himself deeper in Sam, he remembers how it sounded before, his breath and Sam’s running together, the way their names, hissed or whispered or screamed, became one, the groans and cries and whimpers. Now, Sam arches beneath him, mouth open, as he comes, and it’s silent, all around him. 

He’d go mad if Sam wasn’t halfway there already.

\--

Dean wakes up alone, always alone, one hand wrapped around a gun under the pillow, the other resting on the warm spot on the coarse sheets Sam left with his body and mind. Dean doesn’t know how Sam does it, because he’s probably been gone for hours by now, standing up on the Wall and staring off into the Shiftlands. 

He cleans up as best he can and then ducks out of their tent, eyes catching the color of the sunrise and the fleeing night, the flurry of action near the canteen, the way the pair of soldiers at the civilian edge of the Zone look as if they’ve been waiting for him. That, more than anything, drives Dean across the camp, and he notes with rising worry the way the two soldiers relax when he’s near. “Dean,” one of them says, and Dean interrupts, asks, “Is he all right?” The soldiers exchange glances, just long enough that Dean can look up and see Sam standing on the Wall, looking out over the sand. “He came earlier than we expected, and he’s been standing up there with this, this stuff on his face,” and Dean starts running up the rise, because using any tools of the Sight, this close to the Shiftlands, is only a measure of the last resort. 

Sam’s motionless when Dean gets to his brother’s side, standing still, hands tucked under crossed arms, and Dean wonders for a half-hysterical moment if Sam’s even breathing. Sam must pick up on that because he shudders and opens his eyes and they’re completely white, no color. Dean doesn’t see that, doesn’t care, as he wipes the drips of oil from under Sam’s eyes, thumb tracing cheekbones that have grown more prominent overnight. _I’m all right_ , Sam’s fingers say, curling into Dean’s offered hand, holding tight and revealing the lie and Sam turns his eyes to the west and waits, watches. Dean does, too. 

It’s another hour before Sam moves and the action and repercussions are immediate. Dean’s been studying the sand patterns, but not so intently that he misses the way Sam stiffens and parts his lips. “What is it?” Dean asks, quiet, and Sam doesn’t answer except to send a whip-line of power out along the Wall. Dean wants to warn Sam that they aren’t meant to do things like that in the Zone, but then Sam throws his head back and lets out a wordless, soundless howl. This is how Sam speaks desperation and Dean swallows, mouth dry and throat choking, as the sand in the Shiftlands catches on fire, burning out with every second that Sam’s cry lasts, and the other psychics are running up the hill to their position now. Sam falls to his knees and lets out silent sobs, and Dean understands when Javier, Sam’s second, drops to his knees and cries as well. 

Leaving Sam to his mourning, Dean goes down the hill. The commanding officer, a colonel, approaches, question, in his eyes, and Dean looks up at Sam before he says, “Jana.” The colonel, following that look, says, “She didn’t make it. Fine. What about the rest of the convoy?” Dean shakes his head, “She walked into the Shiftlands, gave herself to it. That decision needs a sacrifice,” and the colonel swears in Zone patois before stomping off. 

\--

Sam stays up on the Wall all day, getting back to his feet when the sun’s overhead and painting everything red. Dean brings up lunch and when he goes back that evening, after working with the soldiers all afternoon, he replaces the untouched tray with another, one lingering touch on Sam’s back as he leaves his brother alone again, silent. Three hours later, he carries the full dinner tray back to the canteen. As he stands at the entrance to their tent, Dean looks over the camp with an appraising eye, then turns his attention in the direction of the Wall. The sky above the Shiftlands is blooming reds and yellows, the colors twisting across a cloudless sky. Sam stands silhouetted in the light, one figure against the curse, and Dean’s no psychic but he gets one sudden surge of foreboding and goes inside the tent, worry and fear sinking into his bones. 

\--

He wakes up, the feel of fingers gliding over his face, and when Dean opens his eyes, he can’t see a thing. There’s movement and then his eyes focus as his mind tells him that it’s Sam, that he’s awake now, and then his mind shuts down when Sam’s lips move against his neck. _Dean._

Sam taught Jana himself, since she arrived a year ago. Dean laughs at himself for falling into the same trap as everyone else, thinking that Sam’s infallible, but here, in the dark of their tent, Sam sleeping uneasily next to him, he knows that’s not true. His brother’s getting skinnier, by the day, it seems, the skin under Sam’s eyes looking less like bruises and more like black hollows that match Sam’s jutting hipbones and the knobs of bones poking out through thin skin. Sam doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, and wants to go into the Shiftlands in search of people his visions have shown him. 

Dean doesn’t know if it’s a true vision or a tool of the Shift, something to lure Sam in because it seems to understand Sam as instinctively as Sam understands it, but he’ll go. The Shift will need a sacrifice if it’s calling Sam, and Dean’ll be damned if he lets anyone else be that for his brother, just like he’ll be damned if he lets Sam do this, whatever it is, alone. And if there are people, well. Dean Winchester won’t leave them there, in the Shiftlands, any longer than he has to.

__

_  
_

__

Yesterday

The trees all over the southern hemisphere, all over the parts of the world left safe from the Shift, are burnt. Trees and every depiction, every image of the Sephiroth, every book or text or treatise on kabbalah. No one has mercy for the tool of their own destruction and reports come up to Santa Margarita of burnings and lynchings, entire communities of scholars and believers, and Dean holds Sam tighter with every tale of rope and pyre, as if his grasp is enough to ward his brother.

No one looks at Sam, though, not Sam and not his students. The reality on the Wall, in the Zone, is different than the cities farther south, and they’ve never once left the village. People here understand or they leave, or they die. There is no other choice. 

\--

The mambo is nice, which makes Dean trust her even less. “You wish to know,” she says, and Dean wants to leave, but Sam says, “Yes,” and steps forward. She smiles, and Sam tilts his head as his face drains of color, eyes intent on something Dean can’t see. Sam’s pale, his body sways, and Dean steps forward into the hand of the mambo. “The guédé speak to him, chile. Let him listen,” and Dean’s heart stops when Sam takes a step away, leans toward a place Dean can’t follow. The mambo’s eyes are trained on Sam, hawk-bright and piercing, Dean’s senses are going off, and Sam’s hair is moving, as if unseen spirits are ruffling their fingers through the long strands. 

Dean hates this, hates his brother’s gift at times like this, and just when he thinks that, the mambo whispers, “You’ll reconsider, chile. A wind’s gonna be a-coming, and what your brother sees in his soul, that’s all that’s gonna be saving you both.” He looks at her, scowls, and is ready to kill her and that crazy prophetic tone of hers, despite the shivers running up and down his arms, when Sam blinks and turns back to face him. “Irish Bayou,” he says, and thanks the mambo. 

Dean can’t get away fast enough, has had enough of voodoo and mysticism, but for three weeks, until they get out of Louisiana, Sam gets these looks every so often, and Dean knows that however loud he talks, Sam’s still hearing something else. 

\--

The Wall goes up, at first a pile of random objects stretching out east to west, a clear line demarcating ‘here and no farther.’ They lay bricks next, tear up the village buildings and, when those run out, ship more in, and Sam mixes his blood and a steady stream of silently mouthed prayers into the mortar. Dean watches as Sam burns himself up, skin pale even in the sun, but glowing as if lit from within, and the soldiers see that Sam’s on their side, sacrificing himself for their common safety. He knows Sam doesn’t see this, just like he knows he isn’t meant to, but he leaves Sam with the bricklayers and masons one morning to go back to their tent, and the sheets have been cleaned, the bed made. A few of the soldiers nod when he comes back to collect Sam for the afternoon siesta, and Sam lies on his back and stares at the roof of their tent. 

Dean dozes off, he’s not sure when, woken by Sam moving, sitting up, looking purposeful. “Sam?” Dean asks, and Sam shakes his head, just a sliver of movement, but Dean’s already learning this language without words. The shake means _It’s nothing to worry about_ , and the little tilt of Sam’s head either means _I’m hungry_ , which would be a miracle at this point, or _Someone’s coming_. From the way Sam’s putting on shoes and a t-shirt, Dean doesn’t think it’s someone coming to their tent. He dresses as well, follows Sam out to the jeep depot and stops at the edge of the parking lot while Sam keeps moving. There’s only one soldier driving, the rest of the small group, six or seven, are all civilians, all female, two children and one teenager among the group. Sam pauses, then walks to a woman with white hair, and Dean watches as the woman speaks to Sam, who doesn’t say anything back but somehow satisfies the woman, who summons the others over. Dean walks over and the woman looks at him and smiles. 

“They say he is a good man,” she says to Dean, Sam and the teenage girl involved in some sort of staring contest. “These are my girls. He can train them, so they can help like he does,” and Dean’s eyes flick over the others. “They’re all psychic?” he asks, disbelief coloring his voice. The woman laughs and says, “More will come. They say he shines.” Dean looks at Sam, who returns the look and shrugs. “Teach them,” the woman says, looking at both of them. “They’ll help and someday, if they are enough, you can stop what’s happening.” Dean sees Sam turn and gaze north, sees the way all of the other women do the same thing, and he sighs. 

The next day, Dean teaches them the words of the prayers and they bleed into the mortar while Sam looks on, eyes turning darker with every drop of blood that falls into the mix. 

\--

“And what was the lesson about?” Jim asks over dinner. Dean looks at Sam, who stares back, calm and placid, unlike normal, eyes burning, like they do after a lesson Sam _gets_ , usually in a much different way than the teacher, any of the teachers, intended. Dean mutters something about war and strategy, fidgeting as he passes the corn, because he’d rather be outside, hands taking apart guns or up to the elbows in the Impala’s engine. Jim sighs and looks at Sam, asks, “And Sam? What was the lesson about?” Dean looks at his brother again, and he’s not sure why his heart skips a beat when Sam, nine years old, says, “The ethics of sacrifice.” 

By the time he can breathe again, Jim’s looking at Sam the way their dad looks at Dean, proud and somewhat disbelieving. When Dean goes upstairs an hour after Sam, Sam’s still reading, trying to puzzle through one of Socrates’ dialogues on ethics in the original. It looks like he’s going cross-eyed, it looks like he has the mother of all headaches, and Sam hates Greek as much as he loves Latin, so why he’s focused, captivated, is beyond Dean. Beyond him, but it terrifies him, and he’s almost glad that Sam has a nightmare a few hours later and crawls into Dean’s bed after he wakes up shaking. 

\--

Once, in the night, while he’s still learning the silent languages Sam speaks in, Dean asks, “Do you think Dad would have wanted to see this? How it ended?” Sam looks at him, eyes a steady glide from Devil’s Trap to brother-lover-Dean, and arches an eyebrow, pushes hair out of his eyes and leaves a trail of chalk-dust on his forehead. Dean can’t decipher the look, so he leans forward and wipes the dust off with a spit-slick thumb, tracing Sam’s cheekbone after the chalk’s gone, following the line of bone from ear to jaw. “The ones we knew, the people who didn’t get out in time,” Dean says, forcing Sam to look at him by holding Sam’s chin in a grasp hard enough to leave bruises, “was it quick?” 

There is no room between them for lies, but Sam doesn’t try; he doesn’t answer and goes back to the Trap, which is answer enough for Dean. “Fuck,” Dean says, and goes outside to vomit. The Shiftlands sparkle, false water, false hope. 

\--

The colonel watches Dean watch Sam. Sometimes he talks about Argentina, sometimes Britain, and once, not long after the first psychic jumps over the Wall, his wife. Sam stands high on the Wall and stares north without blinking, Dean stands down the rise and stares at Sam, and the colonel says, “At times, I’m glad she didn’t have to witness this. There are other times I wish she was here with me.” Dean says nothing, and they stand in silence for a long while, the sky over the Shiftlands changing from red to orange. “Sam has been on the Wall since well before sunrise. Take him back and feed him,” the colonel says, and although Dean’s not under the colonel’s command, doesn’t need to follow orders, he goes up the rise, on to the Wall, and leads Sam back to their tent. He tells Sam what the colonel said, and Sam smiles, curls up into Dean and sleeps. 

\--

“Bobby says they’ve heard things about the Israelis,” Dean murmurs, and Sam looks up through his bangs, slides his lips off of Dean’s cock and says, “Tell me you’re not talking politics while I’m trying to get you ready to fuck me.” Dean laughs, says, “Get back to work, then, and stop fucking around,” but Sam doesn’t. “Why are you worried?” Sam asks, stretching, shifting his knees, and Dean says, “I’m not. It’s just, if what Bobby’s heard is right,” before Sam does that, that _thing_ with his teeth, and all thoughts of suicidal Kabbalists flee his mind. Sam does it again and Dean groans before he slides to the floor, to Sam. 

When they’re done, sticky and panting, blissed out and fucked out, high on each other, Sam pokes Dean in the ribs. “Next time, you asshole, pull me up. I’m gonna have permanent carpet burn at this rate.” Dean laughs and they get to bed, and sleep is light and warm and found with bodies pressed together, hands tangled together, breath mingling.

__

_  
_

__

Lacuna

The wind shifts, miasma, hot, so very hot, shifting and making the Shift louder, noises and screams and low, throaty murmurs, just coming across the Wall, over the Zone, through the camp and into your ears, never ending streams of red and orange and heat, so hot, crawling over your skin, under your clothes, burrowing into you and it’s so tempting, rushing wind and noise, so much noise, noise that comes from you, pours up your throat and hits a lump that moves closer to your mouth with every day, and it’s there, in all of you, and you can see it in them, like it is in you, moving closer and closer to noise, to hearing, to the madness the Shiftlands hold and caress and covet, the madness in you, in all of them, the madness that courts you in glimmers of the phantasmal, in howls of wind across still sand, in loneliness and emptiness and never-death.

It’s worse when you sleep.

Worse, _worse, **worse**_ ; shrill sounds like glass breaking and grinding and dusting itself, sand on the wind, motion in the air, in your head, it's all in your head, hot and wet and blood and death and it's all in your head, in your head, _in your head, **in your head**_.

It drives all of you mad, some faster than others, some deeper than others. It seems to know you, wants to know you better. It’s taking it’s time with you, sinking roots in deep, and in the night, you sleep and dream, and don’t know where you begin and it ends, psychotic symbiosis but which one of you is the host and which one the parasite, you don’t know. Sometimes the only thing you know is Him, part of you and not, like the Shift, one on each side. Sometimes you’re close enough to Him to remember ‘Dean’ and ‘brother’ and ‘love.’ Sometimes you’re too close to the Shift to know anything except that He exists and you’re connected to Him enough to stay, enough to try and stay, enough to try and resist for one more day the siren-song of the Shift that calls for you, never ceasing.


	3. Part Two

Today

“Dean, you honestly can’t be endorsing this, this mad scheme of Sam’s,” the colonel says, and here, now, in the tent, Dean shrugs. The colonel is an old man, British paramilitary who retired to Argentina and was part of the first transport north to the Zone. Dean’s heard, through various soldiers, that the colonel has been in the Zone since the first brick of the wall was laid in Santa Rita, above Rio Grande, which means he can’t feel anything but a healthy contempt for the Shiftlands and treats the psychics as tools, weapons in his arsenal. “We’ll send for some supplies if he’s starting to feel drawn to the north,” the colonel goes on; “they’ve found an excellent combination of sedatives. I’m sure all he needs to do is recharge.”

Dean shakes his head, eyes focused on the colonel. “All due respect, sir, Sam knows there are people out there and he’s free to go after them if he wants. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you: Sam and me, we’re leaving in the morning.” The colonel sighs, a deep exhale that leaves him smaller, somehow, as he says, “We can’t hold the Wall without him,” and Dean replies instantly, “Bullshit,” even if he thought the very same thing when Sam told him. “The other spooks here are the best trained on the Wall and your soldiers are good, they know what to do if the Shift skirmishes. We’ll be taking basic packs, shouldn’t be gone more than a week.”

\--

Sam’s on the Wall, psychics surrounding him in a half-circle as they all look north, talking amongst themselves without words, gestures, expressions. Dean doesn’t know what’s going on, what they’re doing, and he lingers a few strides away, studying his little brother. Here, with others who understand him in ways Dean can’t, Sam stands taller, but they all seem to lean unconsciously towards the Shiftlands, Sam most of all, as if they’re all listening for the starting gun. It freaks Dean out, a little, and annoys him, a lot, how no one but the psychics can talk like that, that there’s a part of Sam he can’t reach, and steps forward. The psychics move to let him in without looking, and Dean’s at Sam’s side after three seconds. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” he says, and the corner of Sam’s mouth quirks _I know_. Dean huffs, says petulantly, “Can’t I have any surprises anymore?” 

The almost trance-like atmosphere breaks as the psychics look at him, smiling, and leave the two Winchesters alone on the Wall. Their sun is setting, layers of blue and purple flooding the sky, but the sky in the Shiftlands is white and flaming, orange sparks falling to the sand and igniting dry wildfires that burn up and then go out in moments, little explosions dotting the desert as far as Dean can see. 

“I’ve gotten the packs ready,” Dean adds, and Sam nods once and holds out his hand. When Dean offers his, Sam looks down and grasps Dean’s hand, almost shyly, but the grip’s too strong, too panicked. _What if I’m wrong?_ Sam’s fingers say, pressed against Dean’s skin. _What if it takes us?_ Dean reaches over and rubs a thumb over the arch of Sam’s eyebrow. “Then it takes us, Sammy. We have to try. We can’t just let people suffer.” Sam sighs, a silent action composed of neck and shoulders and chest, no sound, no expression. The sigh, the downtilt of Sam’s chin, says, _Colonel thinks I’m crazy. What if he’s right? If this is a trick?_ and then looks away, bites his lip. Dean studies that, asks, slowly, “What is it?” Sam shakes his head, but when he’s done, his head’s tilted to one side, as if he’s listening, and his pupils flare impossibly large. Dean only remembers Sam acting like this in one place, seeing particular spirits, hearing certain things, and it was one woman responsible for it all then, so he guesses. “The voodoo queen,” he whispers. “The one from New Orleans. You’ve been hearing her guédé through the Shift?” Sam doesn’t nod, but he doesn’t have to. 

“Fuck.”

\--

Sleep doesn’t come easily for Sam; doesn’t come at all for Dean. Dean sits up and watches his brother toss and turn, mouthing words that lack sound. Sam arches and claws at the sheets, cries silently, his tears soaking his hair and plastering it to skin that’s a little too white, a little too blue for comfort. Dean can’t sleep, can’t think of anything but the Shift, how Sam’s going into it voluntarily, wonders if Sam’s mind has shattered more than he’s let on. 

In the hour before twilight, Dean hears a barely audible whine, a noise that doesn’t so much sound in his ears as rattle his teeth, and he thinks that if he’d been sleeping, he would have missed it. It wakes Sam up, though; his brother stills the restless movements and stops breathing. As soon as Dean reacts, stands, Sam inhales and sits up, eyes glassy. “Is that what wakes you up every day?” Dean asks, and Sam turns those vacant eyes on him. Dean’s looking into the eyes of a madman, he can see Sam, how fractured Sam is, how much the Shift has merged with his brother, but then Sam blinks and he’s normal again, what passes for normal. “Sam,” Dean whispers, half-question, and Sam’s eyes bleed sadness as he pats the bed next to him. Dean walks over, sits down, and Sam lays his head on Dean’s shoulder, trails fingers down Dean’s chest. _Please_ , he tells Dean, lips sucking on Dean’s earlobe, _before we go. Make love to me?_ Dean reaches up to hold Sam’s hand, wrap his fingers around Sam’s, and he leans, pushing Sam back down into the mattress. 

It’s soft, lazy, the way Sam writhes beneath him, legs wrapped around Dean and pulling Dean closer, tighter. Dean moves slowly, eyes open, watching Sam and trying to draw this out as long as possible, in case it’s the last time he’s ever this deep in his brother. Sam’s pupils are blown, covering the iris, and the arch under his eyebrows is bright red as he pants. It’s the most perfect and the most terrifying thing Dean has seen, and when Sam comes with a wordless keen, Dean smells the thick, cloying scent of the Shift, overripe and already decaying, and Dean wants to cry. Sam shifts, raises a hand to stroke Dean’s face, _Thank you_ and _I’m sorry, Pray for us_ and _I love you_ , and Dean comes with a sob, fingers digging into Sam’s hips. 

\--

They leave when dawn hits, jumping the Wall. Sam goes first, catching the packs as Dean throws them down, then steadying Dean when his feet hit this side of the Zone. Dean can feel the Shift like he’s never felt it before, hot and itching over his skin, like chicken pox or measles, but Sam’s already shrugging the pack onto his shoulders, eyes trained on the Shiftlands. Dean looks back, sees the colonel standing on the Wall, flanked by psychics and soldiers holding salt, and then glances at Sam. His brother’s looking north, eyes shining with an eager horror, and Sam meets Dean’s gaze, holds out a hand. When Dean takes it, they walk into the Shiftlands together. 

\--

The second he steps into the Shiftlands, Dean stumbles, nearly falling to his knees. The heat is scalding, he can feel his skin start to burn and his eyes are too dry to see out of. His vision’s gone grey, he can’t breathe, the Shift’s trying to burrow inside and shift _him_ , fuck. And then Dean gasps, the pressure gone without warning. Dean blinks, licks his lips, and tastes blood. He looks up and Sam’s holding Dean’s cheeks, sucking half-heartedly on what looks like a split lip. “What?” Dean asks, but the word is swallowed by a song that he can only just tease out. Mouth open, Dean can’t do more than gape as he gets an impression of apology from Sam along with fingertips on cheeks that press out, _There’s a reason they built the wall, Dean. It wasn’t to keep the Shift out._

Dean’s never thought about the Wall and Zone that way and he can’t help looking behind him. The people on the Wall are blurry, indistinct, made fuzzy by the edges of the song and the howling slide of air like oil over his skin. Sam’s still looking at him, touches and expression trying to explain, but all Dean understands is that somehow Sam’s blood will keep him as safe as one can be in the Shiftlands, and the song that Dean hears like a scab that needs to be picked at is humming in Sam’s bones, has been since the wind Shifted. “Let’s go,” Dean says, and Sam nods, tugging Dean towards the trapped psychics. 

\--

They walk, and they walk, and they walk. Sam is driven by a manic energy, long legs crossing the sand and ignoring the green-tinged air, the yellow sky, purple shimmers on the edge of the horizon that are all Dean can seem to focus on. The further in they get, the louder the song grows, wailing discordant. The sky never changes color, Dean’s eyes are aching with the effort of keeping his mind held tight against panic, against reaction, and when Sam turns around to urge him on, Dean wants to ask Sam how to keep going. He doesn’t need to, doesn’t wonder how Sam’s moving so sure, leaving footprints for a trail back when Dean’s are being blown away in cyclones of heat. Sam’s eyes are fragmented, Sam and the Shift swirling together, and when Dean stops, swallows, he tastes his brother’s blood and sees lines on Sam’s body, hints of vines and echoes of leaves, knows that the press of skin over bones will feel like thorns, that Sam’s cheeks are softer than rose-petals. “Sam?” Dean asks, and the twining flowers under his brother’s skin shift and writhe over Sam’s face; “What?” 

Sam smiles, reaches out and takes Dean’s hand, pulls Dean closer and places Dean’s fingers on the largest clump of ivy right over Sam’s carotid artery. Light flares in Dean’s vision, along with the scent of unchecked growth, flowers gone wild, trees marching over shrubs, grass ten feet tall. The song rattles through Dean’s body until all he can feel is the wailing, the pain of growth, the torture of life. He dimly realizes that his screams echo inside of that song, and that there is another line of music, a rich and harmonic counterpoint that reminds him, in the midst of that agony, of salt-water and cool ocean breezes, lake-water and the smell of fish. When he opens his eyes, frantic, he sees a line stretching out in front of them, a wave of blue that, he thinks, ends at the mambo. He steps back, takes his hand off of Sam’s neck, and everything goes back to what he’s come to expect from the Shiftlands, the soft slow drizzle of green sunlight, the spectrum-shining sand beneath his feet. “How can you stand that?” he asks, and Sam’s smile turns sad as he strokes Dean’s arm. There are no words in that touch, no message in Sam’s expression, nothing that Dean can translate. 

\--

Walking over the Shiftlands gives Dean time to think, though he soon finds that his thoughts might drive him as crazy as the Shift. Thoughts about the Sephiroth, about balance, about why the Shift affects electronics the way it does, about Sam, about what’s going to happen. He stumbles eventually, finally, and Sam’s there, steadying him. He turns to Sam, throws his arms around his brother, and cries. He can’t take it, not any more, not this unrelenting pace, like Sam’s eating the Shiftlands in those long, cutting strides, and he drops to his knees, tired, so tired. Sam burrows his face in Dean’s neck, starts planting kisses up and down Dean’s skin, exotic kisses like chocolate, like ice. 

They have sex in the Shiftlands, on the sand, with grains of corrupted dust sticking to them like sin. Dean thinks it’s appropriate, when he can think, Sam tight around him, eyes closed in a crash of pleasure so intense that he’s not sure if Sam will survive it. The song of the Shift, the wraiths Dean can hear, serve as a spine-shuddering complement in inverse to the feeling of being deep in his brother, the sounds he can almost hear Sam make. The vines under Sam’s skin change color in the shining blue sun, writhe as much as Sam does. When Dean comes, the lines blur so much that Sam’s nothing more than an indistinct creeping outline. 

\--

They walk, and stop only when Dean can’t go any further. Dean never sees Sam sleep, like being in the Shiftlands means Sam’s really a part of it now, sleepless because the Shift never rests, never ends. Dean goes to sleep with the sight of Sam pacing etched into his eyelids, looking northwest now towards what used to be Texas, unless they’re already in Texas. Dean wakes up and Sam’s still pacing, the markings under his skin darker. The wind around them sings more and more, and Sam’s head tilts, sometimes, as if he’s listening, paying attention, and it takes more effort than Dean’s entirely comfortable with for Sam to look back towards their destination. Every time, Dean touches Sam, feels the tattoos shift, and digs his fingers into Sam’s shoulder, into the thorny bones, until Sam moves, focuses. 

\--

He can smell a change in the Shift, and when Sam stops and tells him to sleep, Dean doesn’t want to. He does, because Sam sucks him, tongue wet and slick under his cock, cheeks hollowing and throat working him deep, and he’s tired after he comes, Sam swallowing more than semen. Dean sleeps and dreams of snow, and when he wakes up, there are ten others, all covered by the twining roots of the Shift and smiling.

__

_  
_

__

Yesterday

Dean gets in the car, adjusts the rear-view mirror, looks in the backseat and sighs, all before he looks at Sam. When he does, Dean sighs again, understanding just enough of the words and images on the pages Sam’s reading to recognize an alchemical conjuring ritual. “Sam, why do we have fifty billion books in the backseat?” he asks, and Sam turns the page of the one in his lap, absently replies, “Eighteen.” Dean raises an eyebrow and says, “What?” and Sam clucks his tongue, still reading, and replies in the same tone of voice, the one that means he’ll be reading until he hits the back cover, and Dean shouldn’t feel as if he’s been ditched for a _book_ but he does.

“There’re eighteen in the back, not fifty billion.” Dean shakes his head, turns around and looks at the bindings. Grimoire, grimoire, Latin, French, grimoire, Latin, Crowley, and now he’s starting to get those little shivers down his spine, the ones that mean bad things are on the way. “Sam, why do you need nineteen books about spell creation?” he asks slowly, carefully, and Sam turns another page and says, “They’ll be useful.” 

Dean doesn’t ask questions, just drives until it’s too dark for Sam to read and then stops at a motel. Sam reads all night, one book after another, and when Dean wakes up, Sam’s passed out on the table, the cover of Domesius’ _21 Spells_ leaving imprints on Sam’s cheek, and there’s a pile of notes under Sam’s arms that Dean doesn’t remember from before. He looks at the top page, diagram bisected by Sam’s arm, the middle third hidden, sketched symbols surrounded by shorthand in three, maybe four languages, and resists the urge to tear them out from under Sam and burn them. He lets Sam sleep, and drives when Sam wakes up, ready to go. 

\--

Towns on level with Nueva Rosita become outposts, the farthest reaches of civilization. They’re in Santa Margarita, a small village just south of Hidalgo when the announcement’s made, simultaneously newscast on grainy, flickering black-and-white television by the world leaders still alive, and the panic spreads almost instantly at the news that Santa Margarita will become a camp on the Wall. Dean gets everyone to calm down and starts evacuating the people who want to get out. When he’s gotten things moving, it takes him a while before he finds Sam. His brother is standing at the edge of town, on a hill, watching the north and not moving. “Will it reach here?” Dean asks, because if anyone will know, it’s his brother, and Dean’s been asked that question so many times over the past few hours that it’d be nice to have an answer. It takes Sam a minute to reply and when he speaks, Dean thinks that the words have the weight of prophecy. “This far and no farther,” Sam says, and then he spits at the ground, as if to accentuate his words. The spittle clumps and Sam’s eyes focus, making the damp line grow until it stretches farther east and west than Dean can see. “Tell them to build the Wall on this side of that line, because the Shift will reach this point and no farther.” 

It’s the last time Dean hears his brother speak.

\--

After New Orleans, they drive to Georgia, a haunted plantation home, and up the coast after that, toward Maine, the smell of the ocean following Dean into his sleep. It’s the last time Dean sees ice, feels the cold sink deep into the hollow of his bones. He’s not sure when he realized something was going on; they drive south after the last snows and never get too far from Mexico or the ocean. Sam doesn’t say much about it, except to veto any trips farther inland, finding excuses to avoid Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, and Dean allows Sam his whims, until they turn into visions. 

When the wind shifts, Sam has been waiting for it. Dean knows this, can read anticipation and horror both in his brother, and when Sam wakes up and tells him to drive, Dean’s half-relieved. The part of him that isn’t, that’s terrified of the tone of Sam’s voice, that drives in silence towards the border, doesn’t want to understand the reality of Sam’s visions, doesn’t want relief but denial. 

\--

He never leaves his brother, no matter how often the colonel offers him space on the next convoy south. Dean would love to go, but Sam can’t leave the Wall, can’t leave his students, won’t leave the Shiftlands, and Dean’s not going anywhere without Sam. The colonel’s old-fashioned, prep-school educated, and doesn’t raise an eyebrow the first time he understands that Dean and Sam are fucking. The soldiers laugh at the beginning and make jokes about limp wrists, but not after the Shift skirmishes and they see how well the two work together. No one knows they are brothers, no one asks how they ended up in Santa Margarita, no one questions Dean’s devotion and Sam’s clear need. Everything is accepted, acceptable, in a world post-Shift, everything except using any psychic gifts in the Zone, and even that line blurs over time. 

\--

The Zone troops, mostly volunteers but a few conscripts, made up of people from over a dozen different countries, sets up order quicker than Dean thought possible. A chain of outpost villages spring up along the Wall, with schedules for convoys going back and forth between them, checking the Wall, other convoys making runs to towns and cities farther south for supplies and information. Radios and televisions still don’t work dependably, signals hijacked by the Shift, the only method of communication pre-eighteenth century: vehicles facilitating face-to-face. At least they can use jeeps and trucks, and the ships aren’t man-propelled or wind-dependent, but going from the Internet age to this still annoys Dean sometimes. 

Rumor has it that someone in Australia was developing a renewable energy source for the cars, someone else in a South African interest working on faster methods of communication using diamonds and refracted light, but that was weeks ago and there’s no telling if those were even true. He misses music, sound. Batteries are too precious of a commodity to be wasted on frivolities like Metallica and Zeppelin, but Dean thinks he’d be able to live without them if only Sam still talked. He craves the noises Sam used to make, already forgetting, the nuances disappearing like a fading photograph. He’s scared, sometimes, that the silence will swallow them all up, and Dean talks for hours when he gets like that, pausing only for breath and water. 

Sam gets this look, like he understands, like maybe he needs that too. 

\--

They stay in Philadelphia for six months. The first day there, when Dean and Sam are out exploring, Sam sees a bookstore, one of those niche places that it’s easy to walk past unless you’re Sam and have a special radar for these things. Sam goes in and Dean follows, rolling his eyes, though he stops when he sees a copy of Nettleton’s _Key_ in the shelves next to things that look as if they’re written in runes. Sam’s in geekboy heaven, walking through aisles, fingers skimming the bindings, until he stops at one and smiles. The expression lights Sam’s face up and Dean stops, blinded, and the shopkeeper, an old woman, laughs. 

“You smile at the Zohar, _shagetz_?” she asks, and Sam looks up, unapologetic. “I’ve only read parts,” he confesses, and her smile gets pointed, hawkish. “Luria and the feminine, eh.” Dean doesn’t understand, doesn’t know why Sam has that look again, resolve burning in his eyes, as he replies, “Shekinah as _Shabbat Hamalka_ ,” like it’s sacred. The woman studies Sam, studies Dean, with sharp, shrewish eyes, and finally points at Sam and says, “Every day after _shul_ , yes? You come here, we talk.” 

Five days a week, for six months, Sam goes back to the bookshop after school gets out, and halfway through the second month, he disappears during the weekends, too. Dad knows where Sam’s going and what he’s doing, he’d followed Sam in there at the beginning, and all anyone will tell Dean is that Sam’s learning what he’s good at, Dean needs to do what he’s good at. 

They go through a lot of practice rounds, those six months, and Dean takes on a coven of witches in Pittsburgh by himself, kills them, destroys their altar, burns their grimoire, and drives home to get patched up, except he doesn’t feel like home is healing him anymore. Dad’s quiet, always looking pinched, worried, and it’s like Sam’s under a spell; he’s constantly reading, taking notes on things and doodling in a notebook covered with sketches of trees and bushes. He doesn’t slip into Dean’s bed anymore and he shouldn’t, he’ll be in high school next year, it’s good that Sam’s growing out of that. Dean just misses it, and he shouldn’t. 

\--

Power in the Zone’s not practical, not with the Shift so close, not when they don’t know what might happen, but the psychics whiplash salt and talismans across the Wall and into the Shiftlands, and when the Shift skirmishes in defiance, dancing near the line, the psychics hold them back while Sam burns the wraiths to dust. The first few times Dean sees the monstrosities burn, he assumes it’s one of the other psychics or maybe a group spell of some sort, but there’s an attack late one night, while they’re in their tent, and soldiers come running. “They need you, Sam,” one of them says, while the other looks at Dean with a gaze of silent supplication. 

On the Wall, Dean can see psychics holding a line of protective force against the wraiths as soldiers shoot salt into the Shiftlands, making the wraiths even angrier, not having any effect. They all know that the only thing the wraiths fear, the only thing that will send them back to sand, is fire. Dean watches as Sam lays his hand on one of his student’s shoulders and squeezes, sees the way Sam’s eyes catch on the wraith and then reflect fire as the invading force burns and dances away, dust-motes on the wind. 

They go back to their tent, get into bed, and Dean asks, “Why did they know when I didn’t?” Sam turns over and looks at Dean, smiles, _Sometimes, Dean, you only see what you want to_. Dean stares, shakes his head, and Sam’s smile drops as he hunches into himself. _I didn’t know what you’d think_ , he confesses, and Dean wraps his arms around Sam and holds him tight. 

Dean wakes up the next morning to an empty bed, but the spot where Sam had been laying, had slept, is still warm, the pillow still dented, the sheets still smelling of Sam. Dean inhales and, for the first time, smells a subtle haze of smoke, smoke and something that reminds him of late spring, like apple blossom ash after a bonfire. He goes up to the Wall, finds Sam teaching one of the newer arrivals, and smells spring on the girl, too, though hers is younger, daisies after the thaw. He can’t explain where the scents come from or why they suddenly scare him, why Sam’s smell, being older, scares him more, and he forgets until he watches Jana leave, reeking of high summer and rotten fruit.

__

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_

__

Lacuna

You’re inside of it like it’s inside of you, inside, deep _deep_ inside, each learning the other’s secret, a race against time, against power, yours and the Shift’s. He is here, walking with you, part of you, as the Shift sings around you both, but He hears pain and death. You hear promises, cycles, circles, and here, inside of it, the temptation is so much greater. You cross the Shift and walk deeper into it, let it grow inside of you, in your head, _in your head_ , seeds planted in the far edges of a time before taking root with every step, blossoming inside. It’s studied you, merged with you, and sees out of your eyes with every other blink. Heat clings to you, sinks claws into you, and you look, follow its gaze, become part of it until other talons dig into your flesh, this body that seems to exist only for Him, only because of Him, and His fingers rub your skin until you blink and sight is your own. He doesn’t belong here, He shouldn’t be here, but you draw Him on, sing your own siren song, and He follows, follows and slows you down, sentences you, saves you. Your blood is in Him, tainting Him with your madness, the seductive madness of the Shift, and part of you glories while part of you weeps, weeps for Him, weeps for the Shift, sadness never-ending, tears, _  
**in your head**   
_.

The Shift burns. It’s inside, pushing through you and it burns, crowing dominance over blood and oxygen, bones and skin. You have Shifted and it hurts, hurts, hurts now, so much, _in your head_ , but you can only bring yourself to care because He cares, He who doesn’t understand, He who holds you back. You think you love Him when you can think of Him at all, but here, miles into the Shiftlands, the spell of the song all around you, thoughts of Him are hard to find. 

He touches you and the wind shifts, burning, sand glimmering in the light of a midnight sun, and you register the touch too late, half-aware. Others, Others who understand, walk as you walk, half-Shift and manic, spurred on by the song, by the madness, by the hyper-rhythm of circles and cycles unbroken. He sleeps and They arrive and the Shift laughs and the song burns and They touch you and He sleeps.


	4. Part Three

Today

Dean scrambles up, eyes tracing over every person, the mambo and nine others he doesn’t recognize at all. None of them look at him, but he thinks he can sense their conversations, the ebb and flow of discussion. It’s like watching the other psychics talk, back in the Zone, but now, here, he somehow gets the impression that Sam and the mambo are talking about how far safety is, who they all are, why it took Sam so long to get her message. Dean looks behind him and sees Sam’s footprints stretching back to Santa Margarita. He looks back and the mambo smiles at him. Underneath the song of howling agony, he hears an echo of a question, a _Didn’t I tell you?_ and he scowls.

The mambo laughs, action without sound, and Dean flinches as the Shift’s song changes and the vines on the mambo’s face move across her forehead. Sam places a hand on Dean’s shoulder, thumb rubbing across Dean’s skin, and he hates himself for leaning into that touch, that gesture of comfort. He should be the one reassuring Sam, holding Sam to this place, to sanity, not the other way around, but the Shift’s blurring around them, sand and sun and sky mixing together, everything glimmering green and yellow, sick and diseased, and Dean’s not sure he’ll be able to trace Sam’s footprints back to Santa Margarita. 

Dean’s knees buckle and the mambo frowns; he hits the sand and then Sam’s mouth is on his, devouring. Blood fills Dean’s mouth, Dean’s and Sam’s, and once Dean swallows, the world seems to steady, like it did when he first jumped the Wall and crossed the line Sam set out ages ago. When he opens his eyes, Dean sees Sam’s lips painted red, carmine coating Sam’s teeth, the lines under Sam’s skin eight shades darker. He stands, unsteady, and helps Sam up, and the mambo nods while the others just watch. 

\--

They spend the night there, the dozen of them, and Dean’s the only one who sleeps. When Dean’s eyes close, head in Sam’s lap and knees pulled up to his chest, Sam and the mambo are sitting across from one another, the nine others circled around them and listening. Dean can hear the conversation clearer, now, like the soft murmur of words in a different room, audible and almost comprehensible, if he tries hard enough to listen. He falls asleep, listening, and when he wakes up, the mambo is gone. 

The sand around them glimmers as it cyclones, blocking out the sun and soaking in the heat. As Dean stands up, the nine look at Sam, and as Sam stands, shaking feeling back into his feet, they start walking towards safety. “Where is she?” Dean asks, yelling through the sand, and Sam raises a hand to the sky. Dean can see leaves painted on Sam’s forearm, standing out green in stark relief to Sam’s pale skin and the red sand around them, and he misses it when Sam’s smile says nothing and everything. He thinks he understands, but he has to know, so he says, “She gave herself to the Shift?” 

Nine pairs of eyes look at him and Sam laces his fingers with Dean. _The Sephiroth, Dean. A group of ten will cross the Shiftlands better than a group of eleven._ Dean’s heart skips a beat, and he says, “There’s eleven of us now.” Sam doesn’t look at him, just pulls him along and joins the nine, starts walking toward the Zone. Dean’s not sure, in this silence, what Sam means; if he and Sam count as one person because Sam’s blood protects him from the Shift or if Sam’s too far gone into the Shift to count as a person anymore. Watching the vines circle his brother’s neck like a noose, Dean doesn’t think about it, doesn’t ask again, just fixes his eyes on the footprints, reverse trail to home. 

\--

The nine are their own company, and Dean could almost forget that he and Sam are being followed, being watched. He asks Sam where they come from, who they are, and Sam’s fingers tell a story that mirrors the Sephiroth, that follows the lines of rivers and valleys, that incorporates every psychic hotspot east of the Mississippi and north of the Gulf. Dean asks them their names and quickly learns that he’ll never speak their language, the one Sam speaks with ease. He says “ _Christo_ ,” just once, without thinking, and one of the nine flinches while the Shift screams around them. “Sam,” Dean begins, and Sam soothes him with a touch, presses two fingers against Dean’s lips, leans in and kisses Dean’s temple. _It’s all right. Trust me, Dean, please._

Dean does, would have no other choice even if he didn’t want to, and lets the nine fade from his worries. They follow Sam with feet and eyes, leave no footprints, obey Sam in everything, even before Sam speaks, and when Sam pulls Dean down into the sand and lays kisses like wax all over his body, they turn away and keep watch, do not react when Dean sobs and comes all over Sam’s hand. 

\--

His eyes are dry and ache from the heat. He doesn’t know when he ate last; the food in the packs is gone. Sam never ate any of the rations, neither did the nine, but despite Dean’s care, the food is gone and the line of footprints stretches out into a horizon slick with purple. Dean’s not hungry, not thirsty, and he wonders if this is how Sam feels all of the time, like he’s never quite full but nowhere near empty, like the sun and heat and circling Shift are food of their own kinds. He’s keeping up with Sam, now, not all of the time, but better than on the way out here, and he’s not surprised when he hears Sam one day, and then hears the nine reply, words clearer than any other noise in the Shiftlands, clearer than the frantic song that rattles his bones. He looks down and sees a leaf drawn underneath the skin of his right hand and doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile, just accepts it and keeps walking. 

\--

He walks, Sam walks, the nine follow them, and then one hour, day, moment, eternity comes and they cross the line. Dean hears shouting come from the Wall suddenly clear and giant in his vision, and he stops, rocks on his heels, looks at Sam. Sam smiles and heads toward the Wall, and the colonel calls out, a voice Dean never thought he’d hear again, no matter how much he trusted his brother before this expedition. “Are you sane?” the colonel yells, and it might have been a stupid question, but the Shift’s wraiths wail and scream, the psychics stand there quietly, and Dean yells back, “Sane enough, sir.” 

There’s stillness on the Wall, followed by a flurry of activity, and within minutes they’ve lowered ropes and water. Dean steps forward, then looks at the others who make no move, raises an eyebrow at them. The nine are watching Sam, whose markings, tattoos, are still writhing sinuously under Sam’s skin, green leaves and brown vines and red flowers, and Dean looks down, sees that the leaf on his own hand is immobile and faint, already fading into a thin, almost invisible web of lines. Sam nods and the nine walk for the Wall, grab lines, and are pulled up. Sam looks out at the Shiftlands, shakes his head, and follows Dean to safety. 

\--

They’re fêted like heroes, for voluntarily going into the Shift and coming back, not only alive, but with nine others. Dean wants to say that there were ten, that a woman, however he felt about her, gave her life for them and their safety, but he doesn’t. He keeps silent and accepts the colonel’s accolades, smiles at the soldiers’ awe, gets the nine settled in tents near his and Sam’s. He sees the other psychics welcome his brother back and give the nine a wide berth, notices that another of the psychics is gone and no one mentions him. “How long were we gone?” Dean asks the colonel, the words strange and unfamiliar, almost painful in his throat. The colonel gives him an odd look, and Dean says, “It was sunny, all the time. Never knew what time of day it was. We only stopped when we had to.” That gets an understanding nod and then the answer. 

Three weeks. They had been in the Shiftlands for three weeks, and come back alive, human, even with the tattoos Sam carries like grief and the nine wear with pride. Everyone else is pleased, and Dean can only think that something precious, something priceless, has been broken and lost. 

\--

Sam is hot and hard against him that night, muscles and bones as much as cock. Sam’s breath scalds his body, burns like the Shiftlands’ sun did, and here, where the air doesn’t reek of growth, Sam smells like fire, like fruit overripe on trees, berries bursting on vines, burnt offerings. “Sam,” Dean breathes, and Sam’s legs around him feel like suffocation, like need. “Sam,” he cries out, and Sam’s tight around him, even hotter deep inside. “Sammy,” he gasps, and comes, and in that instant where he hangs in the balance between orgasm and death, he thinks he can hear Sam, hear Sam say his name like he used to, like that night in Texas before the wind shifted and the world split in two. 

\--

The nine settle into the camp’s routine with little effort and even less trouble. The other psychics avoid the nine but the soldiers seem captivated by them, spend hours tracing gliding tattoos with their eyes, shotguns almost forgotten despite being carried and held like amulets. Dean wants to mock them but can’t, because last night he covered the twining, twisting paths under Sam’s skin with his tongue, watching Sam. On the Wall and silent, flanked by two of the nine, Dean thinks that maybe the green of the leaves his brother wears is brighter, the reds and browns iridescent, sparkling in a way they hadn’t been last night. 

With every hour, with every silent stare, the nine seem to become less human, quiet and still like thousand-year redwoods, immutable and motionless like mountains. When Sam is around them, he draws that stillness toward him and the vines under him, in him, slow down. He thinks he hears the Shiftlands sigh, when Sam is around the nine, and the leaf on his hand throbs and burns. 

\--

The other psychics, Sam’s students, approach Dean one day while he is standing at his tent and watching Sam. His brother’s doing something, along with the nine, all of them standing on the Wall and looking north, their bodies maps of flora, and Dean’s distracted at first, giving Sam’s students only a fraction of his attention, until one steps in front of him, blocks his view of Sam. Dean’s angry now, and tries to understand their silence, but he’s only ever been able to understand Sam, talk to Sam, and he sees them give up, turn away. 

“Write it down,” he tells them, and one of them shakes her head as her eyes flick up to the Wall. “They won’t let you?” he asks, and as she looks down at the sand, he says, “Sam won’t let you.” She pales, nods, and it’s all he can to do to keep from screaming, but he asks, “He told you not to tell anyone?” She nods again and then melts away, like the others, silent on her feet and silent in her movements, like the shadow of a ghost, and when Dean looks back up at Sam, he frowns. Sam used to look like that, used to walk around the village with wounded eyes and hollow ribs, bones visible through a layer of skin prone to bruising, but ever since he went into the Shiftlands, ever since he met the nine, he’s filled out again, looks as if he’s eating plenty. Dean can’t remember the last time he saw Sam eat, doesn’t think he’s ever seen any of the nine eat a thing. 

He crosses the Zone, climbs the rise and walks along the Wall until he’s next to Sam, the nine moving without noise to accommodate him. Dean rests a hand on top of Sam’s, his right hand, the hand with the Shift-born leaf on it, threads his fingers with Sam’s and squeezes. _Don’t be worried,_ Sam tells him, and Dean says, “They’re afraid of something,” voice hoarse and scratchy. _They understand enough to be afraid and not enough to know better._ Dean looks at his brother, reads calm resolve, acceptance, and wishes there was determination there as well, some evidence of fight or passion, but he doesn’t see it, so he leans his head against Sam’s and says, “Promise me, Sam, you won’t do anything stupid.” Sam’s reply doesn’t reassure him. 

_Dean. You’d never let me._

\--

He wakes one morning, after months have passed, months of worry, of concern, of dreams that wake him and leave him shaking, cored to the bone, and Sam is gone. When he goes outside, the village is silent. No one is moving, not the people here, not the soldiers in the Zone, arms and guns pointing at the Wall, rock-salt bullets frozen in mid-air. The Shift is beckoning and Dean runs to the Wall, screams as the nine step into the Shiftlands, falls to his knees as Sam follows without looking back. The song howls, the sand rips itself apart, and Dean blacks out.

__

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_

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Yesterday

The soldiers here in the Zone are like every other soldier, anywhere in the world. They’re coarse and raucous and love to talk about women, get maudlin when they’re drunk, and call Santa Margarita a _sacanagem, las barriadas_ , a shithole. Dean drinks with them, when Sam’s sleeping, spends downtime with them in the tent next to the canteen, and he laughs and agrees, but they all know he doesn’t mind it. One of the soldiers, a newer arrival, leers, says, “He doesn’t mind, ‘cause he still has a _veado_ to put it in, eh?” and the tent goes silent. Dean doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. He throws back the rest of his beer, cheap shit sent up from Peru, and leaves, and he hears the others, the ones who have been here longer, the ones who know Sam, start in.

As he stands above the bed, watches Sam frown in his sleep, Dean knows what the soldiers are saying, he’s heard it all before. “Brujo saved our lives, _pibe_ ,” “Sam’s all that stands between us and them, and you better not fucking forget it,” “Don’t fuck with them, either of them, _xochota_ , or you’ll answer to us.” 

It’s true, it’s all true, but it’s still more than that, Sam’s still more than just a willing body, somebody to warm Dean’s bed. Sam’s all Dean has left and even he’s fading away into the early-summer smell of crab-apples. Without Sam, there is no Dean, and that’s a reality none of those soldiers can understand, because no matter how much they say they miss their families, wives, girlfriends, if they felt one-tenth of what Dean does for Sam, none of them would be here. 

He crawls into bed and wraps himself around Sam, who opens his eyes and blinks. _Everything all right?_ and Dean sighs into Sam’s neck, smiles. “Is now, Sam. Go back to sleep.”

\--

Dean has nightmares about New Orleans for months after they leave, even when clam chowder fills his stomach instead of jambalaya and he’s wearing two extra layers. He remembers the city from before the hurricane, hates how it’s never quite recovered, and has dreams where he can see demons poised over every spot still in disrepair, banshees living in neglect and poltergeists in despair. Sam holds him when he wakes, rocks him and drinks down his tears, murmuring reassurances and platitudes until they both fall back into sleep, wrapped together like they’ve found home. 

Sam never says anything about the nightmares when they wake in the morning, just showers or packs, and Dean’s never quite decided whether he’s all right with that or is a little disturbed by it. It’s not like Sam to let things go, it’s not like Dean to want to talk, and the uneasy cementing of their newfound roles rides them, hard and heavy, until one night in Laredo, when Sam smears oil on his eyelids and keeps them safe. 

\--

They come to the outpost, led by visions and dreams and some sense of Sam, what and who he is. Apart from the first group, they come in ones and twos, straggling their way, a couple the first month, then steadily more and more, until half of Santa Margarita is made of psychics who don’t talk. Dean’s not sure how they communicate with one another, whether it’s telepathy or some quirk of their gift, but Sam looks at each one who comes and Dean thinks his brother must welcome them, because they all seem to lose some weight off of their shoulders when Sam finally smiles. His brother is their leader, their teacher, and Dean doesn’t know where his place is, yet, in this new world. 

He finds out quickly, when the Shiftlands finally hit the line Sam gave his last words to. Anything still alive on the northern side of the Wall howls during the night, plants and animals and earth, and Dean wakes up at three in the morning, alone, when he hears gunfire and shouting. A soldier opens the tent, looks frantic, and Dean pulls on his jeans and follows the soldier in a run towards the Wall. He can see people up on the Wall, some with guns, some without, and he sees Sam there, standing still. 

When he gets to the Wall, to Sam, Dean looks out and mutters a low curse, then takes the nearest soldier by the shirt and says, “Find salt. Iron won’t work.” The soldier doesn’t move, so Dean yells, “Now, soldier!” and makes sure the man’s scurrying down the hill before looking at his brother. Sam appears as if he’s just looking out at the sand, the howling mutations, but Dean sees the way Sam’s breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, and glances around to confirm that the other psychics are doing the same thing. 

Dean’s about ready to yell for the salt, but soldiers are bringing up buckets of it now, and Dean scoops a handful up, looks at Sam, waits for a nod, then throws. The salt seems to hang in the air for a moment, still and weightless, and then it spreads and speeds out and over the line, slamming into the red shimmers and dancing sand. The howls turn to screams as Dean throws again and again, and soon the soldiers are flinging salt as if their lives depend on it and the psychics are giving the crystals wings, flight. 

At sunrise, the screams die down, the sky over the Shiftlands orange and yellow, the sky over Santa Margarita blue and cloudy. All that anyone can see when they look north is sand shining red and green, rainbows like an oil slick. 

“Is it over?” Dean asks Sam, and Sam’s eyes slide from the Shiftlands to his brother standing next to him. Dean sees _It won’t ever end_ in Sam’s eyes, but _This is it for now_ in Sam’s half-smile, and Dean sighs, shoulders drooping. The soldiers disperse, Dean takes Sam back to bed, and he pretends not to see the way both of them are watched. 

\--

The Shiftlands spell madness, Dean can see that from the way things on the other side of the Wall act, and it takes him a while to see echoes of that madness on this side of the Wall. Soldiers and officers stick to straight rotations, eight hours in the Zone, sixteen hours out, six month deployments along the Wall, three month mandatory regroup father south. Dean, some of the other locals, they get watched, as if the Shift will affect them, but Dean gradually learns that the Shift won’t drive them mad, just attack them from behind if they get careless. 

No, Dean sees a psychic, one of the girls from the first truck, vault the wall one morning and walk towards the Shiftlands, laughing silently as she goes. She’s carrying a baby, one of the few born here, in Santa Margarita, post-Shift, in her arms, and no one can do anything. The soldiers are frozen horror-struck, and the other psychics are holding people back from following, setting up a force-field no one can get through. Sam’s merely watching, and he sees equal parts terror and dispassionate curiosity on his brother’s face, one scaring him just as completely as the other. The psychic crosses the line and the baby screams, screams as the Shift takes it, twists it into some spectral anomaly, and the psychic’s still laughing, this time audibly, when the once-infant flies towards the Wall with talons outstretched. 

Before anyone watching can react, the ghoul bursts into flames and dies, as dead as anything in the Shiftlands can die, and Dean looks at Sam, who’s still staring avidly at the psychic, fire in his eyes. She turns, meets his gaze, and then laughs as she shimmers and melts into the sand, spreading across the ground like liquid cranberries, thick and glimmering. “Why did she do it?” Dean whispers, the words preternaturally loud in the shocked silence of the Zone, and Sam meets Dean’s gaze. 

Dean flinches, sees madness and longing and stubborn refusal all playing through cats’ eyes, and that’s when he learns that the Shift reaches south even over the line, the Wall, the Zone. “You hear it,” he murmurs. “It does something,” and Sam holds the look before facing northwards. Dean picks up Sam’s hand, holds fingers that feel familiar, soaks in heat that can’t be natural over skin that’s much too clammy. Sam’s muscles tense, but he laces his fingers in Dean’s, the grasp speaking _I need you. Protect me. Don’t let me do that, too_ , and Dean forces a smile. “Always here,” he says, and wishes it sounded more like a promise and less like a prayer.

They start losing psychics after that, the weaker ones and ones without family or friends there to ground them. Not very often, not at first; not until they start sending psychics with the convoys that run along the Zone. Three in the past six months, all of them middle-ranged. 

\--

Soldiers drive into town the next morning, most of the residents gone south, only a few die-hard locals left along with Dean, Sam, and a handful of others willing to fight. The colonel in charge tells them to evacuate and Dean shakes his head, says, “We’ve been fighting things like this our whole lives. I can teach you what you need to know about killing them, and he can,” Dean falters. He looks at Sam, who’s looking at the officer as if he can read the man’s mind, and Sam nods, then crouches down and draws a symbol in the sand. “Brujo,” one of the soldiers’ murmurs and instantly all guns are ready to fire, aimed at Sam. Dean says, “He’s on our side. He didn’t do this,” and not one of the weapons moves. 

Dean sighs, locks his gaze on the officer and says, “Fight fire with fire, right? He can kill one of those things heading our way without bullets and he can help ward this village and this part of the Wall to keep us safe,” and is more than relieved when the colonel nods reluctantly. “Fine. You can stay,” the officer says, and as the soldiers fall out of their ranks to prep the town for Wall-building, Sam turns and looks west, small smile crossing his lips, before he turns north and watches the sand start to stir in a breeze Dean can’t feel.

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Lacuna

It’s time. It’s time, _it’s time, **it’s time**_ , They say, and They’re right. You can feel it, feel the Shift inside of your body, ready to blossom, ready to have you walk into the Shiftlands and plant yourself, and you know They feel the same. It’stime _it’stime_ , They whisper, and it’s strumming through each of Them, pulling Them, and They’ll answer but in Their own way. It’s time, They breathe, and you breathe back. Yes, it’s time, everything has a season, time, _time_ , time.

You leave Him, walk out to Them, the Others, and They stop everything, stop time here, outside of the Shift. It’s a long walk and an even longer drop. As you stare at the Shift, prepare to meet it, He wakes, and runs, and screams. They go first, it’s the only answer They can give, and They sink roots into the ground as Their minds beat as one, it’s time, time and **time** , ready, the season, it’stime **it’stime**. You smile and follow, and step in front of Them, crown Them, sink your own roots into the Shift even as He wails behind you. 

It happens quickly, _it’stime_ it’stime, after months of waiting, of merging roots and minds and souls, it’s time, and along with your vines and leaves and flowers, the Shift takes the spell. 

It’s time, it’s time, and then the Shift shifts, and where They stood, now stand nine trees, each one a different kind bearing different fruit, and at your feet, a seedling with a single leaf the color of blood and visions. It’s time, it’s time, you hear, and then there is no song, and then there is no you. 

There is only Sam.

The wind shifts, and the sky turns blue-grey. Sam smiles and walks back to Dean.


	5. The Beginning

When the wind shifts, Santa Margarita moves again, unstopped and unstoppable. Bullets resume flight and hit sand, soldiers finish words already half-spoken, and they all realize, instantly, that something has changed. 

\--

Dean opens his eyes ready to cry, ready to walk into the Shiftlands, but the fingers stroking his cheek make him pause, make him look. “Sam?” he asks, sure that he’s died, or that Sam’s a ghost, but Sam looks at him with burning eyes and fierce joy and whispers, “Dean,” in a cracked voice, like he’s just answered the most important question in the universe. Dean gapes and smiles, laughs and says, “What happened?” because he’s just heard Sam speak and it’s been so long, and Sam’s never said his name with that sense of wonder and protection before. “It’s over, Dean.” 

Dean asks, “The world?” and Sam grins, answers, “The apocalypse,” and leans down to kiss him. 

\--

When the wind shifts, it blows everything corrupt away and leaves the world cleansed, new. There is rest and celebration, and across Mexico, a line gets lost in the dust.

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_“The very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the  
colour of smoke. Here and there a military camp lost in   
a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay, death   
skulking in the air, in the water. But they were   
men enough to face the darkness.”_

-“Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad, 1902


End file.
